Thoughts on Love and Loss from a Chaotic Mind

I was 21 when my father passed away at the age of 52. Fourteen years on, I still regret the words I didn’t say, far more than the ones I did.

Looking back, the petty fights mean nothing. The things that once seemed so big and heavy now feel small, almost laughable. Even the traits that used to frustrate me about him have faded. What remains are the good memories — the warmth, the love, the presence.

It makes me wonder: why do we humans wait until someone is gone to truly love them? Why is it that when a person leaves us, only then do they become our idol, our hero, someone we place on a pedestal? We bring flowers to graves, but rarely to the hands of the living. We cry tears of longing, yet miss the moments we had so many chances to simply say “I love you.”

My late father once told me something I never understood until much later:

“The loved one who does not come to me while I am alive — what benefit is he to me when I am under the soil?”

As a young woman, those words confused me. Now, they make perfect sense. The time to show up for the people we love is not tomorrow, not when it’s too late — but now. Because tomorrow is never promised.

So if I could turn back time, there is so much I would tell him. And maybe, just maybe, the real lesson here is not to wait for regret to teach us what love already whispers: say the words, while you can.